Saturday, October 15, 2011

An interview about the history of superheroines

Comic book historian Mike Madrid was interviewed by Collectors Weekly about his experiences with superheroines and comic books. He makes some interesting commentaries about a lot of things that we have talked about in class - like the beginning of Wonder Woman and Promethea. I found it interesting that most superheroines represented a political movement in their time frame. For example, Wonder Woman was created to show women how to be powerful in the 1940s. Supergirl came around in the 1950's and she was created to girls how to be good daughters that obeyed parents. He also talks about how the 1970's comics started appealing to younger and older readers. There were a lot of sexual innuendos that the older readers would understand, but the younger readers wouldn't even pay attention to. This reminds me of Disney movies, after we watch them now that we are older, we pick up a lot more sexual connotations than we ever thought. Storm first appeared in the mid 70's in the X-men comics. This was a bit after the Civil Rights Movement. She is portrayed as a dignified woman with self-confidence and lots of potential. It seems as though comic books paved way for acceptance, or at least helped. I think that this is a very interesting article to read, especially to get a quick grasp on superheroine history and why each superheroine was significant to her decade. There is so much information about so many superheroines, it's slightly overwhelming. He covers the difference between Batgirl and Batwoman, and how Batman respected Batgirl more than Batwoman. He also talks about Supergirl, Birds of Prey, Vampirella, and so many other superheroines. It's definitely worth checking out.

1 comment:

Whoa, this is definitely a good read for this class. I had no idea that SO many heroes and developments were created in relation to real-world happenings, but I suppose that that makes a lot of sense. I love how he said that "The men were always portrayed as one-dimensional. They had to be brave and fearless and sort of stoic. The women were given more of a range of emotions and that made them seem more fully developed as characters, and more interesting." I totally see what he means and I agree that the women seem to be able to develop in many more directions character-wise, as long as they're not overshadowed by their...physical attributes...